Virgin Trains Cheap Rate Travel!!!!!!! Need Help!!

u2o

mssjab wrote:

u2o - I hope you had better luck getting those £6 tickets then I did!!

If you're talking about the £6 Midland mainline ticket into London then yup -
well as Im a young persons railcard holder i got it for £3.95 travelling from Manchester to London via Sheffield last weekend :j (£3.95 includes any connections so Manchester - Sheffield leg with transpennine express was included )

I did book well in advance though, something like mid-february for travelling on 1st april but well worth it!

I have another same train journey from Manchester to London booked via sheffield again at £3.95, for mid-may for my friend's party - makes a night out not that expensive! :beer:

mssjab

Lucky old you.

Enjoy your friends party down here in 'the smoke'

queensway_boy

Virgin trains-instead of using an 0870 number ring 0121 6547 400 for virgin customer services

oap

Hello, well many many thanks for all your help, I am very much obliged, this is weird because we are looking to go to Cheltenham from Bangor N Wales in May!!! Thank you for the reply from the two folk who said they would help, that is really kind of you, actually I am a Mrs oap, but the other half is around!! He just leaves it to me to do these sort of things!!

We visit our son and would very much like to be able to get a proper link to buying these tickets at the ten pound rate which is a big saving, given up driving now too far and makes us too tired.

Will have a good go at the links you have given us and if desperate will get in touch with you by pm. To the gentleman (or lady) who works for Virgin, perhaps you can pass on to Mr Branson that they have a truly lousy web site, I am reasonably intelligent at following instructions, but gave up trying to find special offers on their website, and as mentioned above, I AM NOT PHONING THEM AGAIN!!!!

Sorry for the delay I forgot to press the instant reply button, so had to look specially, been decorating!!

Thanks again all of you, will let you know how we get on. Best regards Mrs oap (and Mr of course!)

oap

Hi again, its me!! well I have just had a very quick look at midland mainline, went through the motions, but they got it wrong, they tried to tell me that I had to change at Chester, then to Crewe, then to Cheltenham, that is wrong, as you can go from Bangor to Crewe, just one change!!

Also they say you can only use one senior railcard for each journey, we need to book our seat, on the Crewe Cheltenham part of the journey, and if we book separately may not be together, or am I just being stupid!!! Senior moment and all that??

Will have another look tomorrow at the trainline one. and thanks again for all the help.

Best regards Mrs oap (old age pensioner!!)

mssjab

Thanks for posting again as you've cleared up the problem I was having in trying to get to your senior £10 ticket.
I've concluded that the ticket is originally £12 one way but reduced to £10 if you're using a senior railcard?

I've had a look at the routing and it says on thetrainline site that from Bangor to Cheltenham Spa its Bangor to Crewe, Crewe to Birmingham and Birmingham to Cheltenham.
However a journey can change if there are engineering works being carried out on the route when you're travelling (usually at the weekends).

I don't know your travel dates, but have found one leg of a return trip in May is available @£10 so it's obviously possible to get a return trip for £20 - it'll just depend on availability.

Oh, and by the way, I managed to get the same info off the Virgin site, but I think I'll stick with the one that works best for me.

marko4ever25

oap wrote:

Hello, we telephoned the Virgin Trains number this morning to try and book two senior saver tickets in May on the special ten pound rate, first of all we got the computerised speaking voice, this said you do not need to press buttons just say what you want, where do you want to go from to etc, etc, this line was an 0870 number! after five minutes at least of going through the whole journey from and back etc, it then said hold on and we will pass you to an Agent .......................................... long wait, then a foreign voice who we could not understand, eventually getting some sort of gist of what they were saying,"we do not have any information in the computer,"" but you must have, we have just told the computer all of the information, correctly, that you required,"" we do not have it, please start again," so we hung up in disgust!!"" So cross, so so cross!!!

The only other way is to go to our local train station which takes a 22 mile round trip, or the internet, which is not easy either when you want a special rate ticket.

HAVE ANY OF YOU TRIED TO DO THIS AND IF SO PLEASE PLEASE TELL US HOW YOU DO IT, NOT MUCH GREY HAIR, BUT GOT A FEW MORE THIS MORNING!!!!

If Martin reads this, please Martin can you help here with these supposedly cheap rate advance fares!!

Thank you, oap's


ps have sent a complaint to Virgin on the net!!Hmmmmmm, copy to Richard Branson!!!

get 25 % off for the bext 3 days only if you book via here

http://www.send-data.net/firstscotrail/prebooking.asp?mn=50678662DA8E

kathy_W

Thanks for the info about the train tickets to Cheltenham Spa from York. I have just used the Scottish rail link and saved 25% thanks very much for this.

Kath

oap

Many thanks for the reply, well I know that you can go direct Bangor, Gwynedd to Cheltenham, one change at Crewe on Thursday 18 May around lunch time, and return Cheltenham to Crewe, Crewe to Holyhead train at around ten in the morning on Monday 22 May, so I do not know why they send you via all these stations, you can do that of course on different times, but we always go for the one change, as there are a lot of steps and lugging a case one change is enough at our age!!

Will keep on trying all your suggestions until we sort this one out, we have got to sort it as we shall be doing this journey a few times a year now that we are not driving the two hundred miles.

Have printed off all the information and will try really hard to crack it, if all fails, will ring the Virgin number we were given, thank you to all, best wishes oap's

oap

Hi again everyone, well at the risk of boring you to death, I felt I must keep you up to date .....!!!! Tried all ways of booking a train from Bangor via Crewe, to Cheltenham, one change, nothing would recognise it for cheap rate!!

In the end telephoned the Virgin help customer support you kindly gave me earlier, they were in England I presume, as I could understand them!! Anyway, I asked why I could not book a cheap advance ticket from Bangor to Cheltenham via Crewe, after a few seconds check up the answer came back, you can only book a train from Bangor to Cheltenham if it is via Birmingham, or Chester, or wherever, but I do not want to go via those stations, there is a train from Bangor at 12.19 arriving in Crewe and an hours wait, this for pensioners is far better than lugging cases up and down strange stations, yes he agreed, but because there is an hours wait, you are not going direct.... hmm, therefore, the computer will only come up with changes.

The only way we can book a train at a cheap rate in advance is to go normal return ticket Bangor to Crewe, then book with Virgin Crewe to Cheltenham Spa as a separate journey, and a single journey, then book a single return journey the following Monday to Crewe and then saver Crewe to Bangor.

Why cant we book a whole journey however long we wait at a station, sorry cannot do!!!! I will put you straight through to bookings he said, if you do it now it will be be £9.50 each way on your senior rail cards and I will put you straight through, no waiting, thank you I said, I then got the computer again, where do you want to go to from etc, Crewe to Cheltenham, etc, then a foreign voice again, where do you want to go, told him all the jargon I have put above, right he said that will be £17.50 each of you, senior railcard, each way, but I have just been told £9.50 , sorry all gone, so I hungup, I have still not booked our tickets, going to Bangor station tomorrow where I can speak to a real person, face to face.............

However, thanks again for all your help, which is OK if you go with the flow and do not want to plan your own journey!! We think it is better to wait on Crewe station in the warm with a cuppa for an hour than slog round big stations lugging a case looking for platforms up and down stairs, which in the end would take almost the same amount of time>>>>

Cheers, oap